Why is everyone being so weird about ‘Avengers: Doomsday’?

Hey there, Popculturology buds. Welcome to the Friday newsletter.

How cool is it that James Ortiz, the brilliant puppeteer who brought Rocky to life in Project Hail Mary, is eligible for an Oscar nomination? This is the Academy’s chance to make up for not only stiffing Andy Serkis after his groundbreaking Rise of the Planet of the Apes performance but then giving Hugo the Oscar for Best Visuals Effects over Rise.

Now before I get back to my hunt for Wendy’s new Cookie Dough Frosty Fusion, let’s get into the week’s pop culture news ...

Welcome to Popculturology!

This publication is a free newsletter, but it’s fueled by readers like you. Support independent news, reviews and more for just $5 a month.

Upgrade to Paid

Includes full access to Snackology and The Cold Open.

NEWS, NOTES & TRAILERS

Guys, it’s just a movie

Um. Hey. Marvel Studios ... what are you guys doing when it comes to promoting Avengers: Doomsday?

It was all ready weird enough when you tried to make people buy tickets to Avatar: Fire and Ash just to see a handful of teasers for the next Avengers movie. (A movie that apparently didn’t make enough money for the third Avatar movie.) And then it was odd when Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, the directorial duo behind Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame who had come back to rescue the MCU, wrote that those teasers “are not teasers. Or trailers. They are stories. They are clues …”

Unable to just be normal when it comes to promoting Avengers: Doomsday — a movie that Marvel Studios and Disney very much needs to restore the MCU to its Infinity War/Endgame box office glory — one of the Russo brothers was back at it this week after CinemaCon with a threat that we would all have to buy a ticket to see an expanded version of Avengers: Endgame in order to understand Avengers: Doomsday.

“It’s critically important to re-release the movie, and, in fact, we’ll be re-releasing the film with footage that is set in the Doomsday story that we have added to Avengers: Endgame,” Joe Russo said during the Sands Film Festival. “It’s an opportunity to create a bridge from Endgame to Doomsday in a very unique way, and because the movie was so successful, we have an opportunity to re-release it. You don’t always get the chance to re-release because it costs money, so the fact that we can enhance the story of Doomsday by bridging it to Endgame and these characters that we worked with for years that we love so much, and continue their story: It’s a really unique opportunity.” 

No.

I’m not doing it.